It was one thing for Felicity to know what she wanted to do to help Sara.

It was something entirely different to follow through with it.

Truth be told, Felicity was still incredibly hurt by Sara's words, no matter how guilty she felt about things she did in the past. It was going to take at least a little bit of time to try and move past that.

The weeks moved by slowly as the family came to terms with the new reality. Just as it had the first time, everyone started reorganizing their lives around Sara. Laurel acted as her informal legal adviser while Quentin and Donna both rearranged their schedules around their daughter's therapy. Felicity, in the meantime, was the one who acted as moral support, keeping them fed and hydrated because they were all seemingly too distracted to do it themselves.

Sara, on the other hand, remained isolated. She only left the basement for meals and her therapy sessions, and she refused to talk to anyone for any period that was longer than necessary.

It was the status quo for weeks until one day, Felicity couldn't take it anymore. The atmosphere in the house grew more and more toxic and it was making it unbearable to live there.

Putting aside her hurt, she waited once again until everyone else in the family had left the house for work. When they were all gone, she marched down to the basement to talk to her sister.

This time, however, she was wearing her armor.

Felicity found her sister once again draped over the couch, staring listlessly at the ceiling. It made her want to roll her eyes.

"Get up," she declared.

Sara turned her head slowly to stare at her sister. Then she turned her head back, like Felicity hadn't said anything at all.

"Sara," Felicity said firmly, "I said get up."

"Go away, Felicity," she answered in an exhausted voice.

"No, not this time. Get up."

"What do you want?"

"I want you to get up," she repeated. "We're going to somewhere, and that would require you to get off the couch and follow me."

"I don't want to go anywhere. Not with you."

"Sara, I swear to God if you don't get your lazy ass off that couch, I will handcuff your wrist to mine and drag you out of this house if I have to."

The younger woman made a huge show of rolling her eyes before pushing the blanket off her body and swinging her legs off the couch to stand up. "There, are you happy?"

"No, but I will be," Felicity shot back. Then she threw a pair of jeans and a T-shirt at her sister. "Get dressed and meet me upstairs. We're going to take a hike."

Sara looked down skeptically at the clothes in her arms. "You're not going to push me off a cliff and into a pool or something, are you?"

"Damn, you've figured out my evil plan," Felicity deadpanned. "Hurry up and get changed!"

Ten minutes later, Sara was finally dressed and they were walking out the door. It was the first time the younger sister had been out of the house for an extended period of time, so she immediately brought her hand to shade her eyes from the offending sunlight.

"Why did you bring me out here?" she whined. "What do you want?"

"I realized that we haven't spent a lot of time together," Felicity said. "And I wanted to fix that."

"We didn't have to leave the house to do that," Sara grumbled.

"Yeah, but staying in the house wasn't what I had in mind."

The two sisters walked through the town, Felicity with determination and Sara with reluctance. After an almost forty-five minute long trek, they finally reached their destination.

Sara stared at the sign in incredulity. "Are you kidding? You brought me all the way out to the animal shelter?"

"Yep," Felicity replied.

"Why?"

"Because, I volunteered us both. We're going to spend the day washing the dogs, cleaning out kennels and playing fetch."

Then, before giving her sister the chance to talk herself out of it, Felicity grabbed Sara's hand and dragged her toward the door. They greeted the two women on call, signed in on the volunteer sheet and were immediately put to work in the dog kennels.

For the next six hours, Felicity and Sara worked nonstop. They cleared all the dog kennels of poop and urine. They took turns washing the dogs and spraying them down until they were completely clean. It was during this time Felicity saw her little sister gradually emerge from the shell she'd forced herself into until she was even smiling and laughing when a particularly energetic yellow lab mix shook out her massive body, spraying the both of them with the excess water.

And after all of that, they dragged their exhausted bodies out into the back field where they tossed around ball after ball for the dogs to chase after and bring back, wagging their tails with excitement each time they trotted back.

It was during the play time the two sisters finally got the chance to talk.

"Why did you bring me here?" Sara asked as she threw a small tennis ball for her collie to fetch.

"I told you, I volunteered us," Felicity answered. "I wanted to spend time with you."

"I know, but why the animal shelter?"

Felicity shrugged. "I don't know, honestly. I was at the coffee shop the other day and there were workers there looking for volunteers to sign up. So I signed us up. At that point I was looking for any excuse to get you out of the basement."

The two sisters were quiet for a beat as they threw ball after ball for their dogs. Finally, after ten minutes of silence, Sara spoke.

"I'm sorry."

Felicity didn't look over. "For what?"

"For what I said the other day. When you offered to pay for my lawyer and stuff."

"I know. It's OK."

Silence descended again, and Felicity didn't bother filling it. This was her following Oliver's advice — she was waiting for Sara to show her what she needed.

"I just felt like I fucked up again," Sara continued. "I made a huge mistake and you had to bail me out. Again. And I couldn't take the guilt so…"

"So you lashed out at me."

Felicity saw Sara's shoulders slump a little out of the corner of her eye.

"Yeah," the younger girl whispered.

Felicity nodded. "Well, I'm sorry too," she confessed. "I'm sorry if I ever made you feel like I didn't love you. Because I really do, Sara."

There was a brief pause, and Felicity saw her little sister make a quick swipe at her face, like she was trying to wipe away a tear before it landed.

"I know," she finally answered. "I love you, too."

When their shift was over, Felicity and Sara both signed out and waved goodbye to the animal shelter workers. The walk home was much less silent. While Sara wasn't back to her normal, talkative self, she at least was willing to answer when Felicity had questions, and by the time they got home, the air between them felt lighter.

Two days later, Felicity once again dragged Sara out of the house to the animal shelter where they did the same thing. And she did it again and again and again until one day, Sara emerged from the basement of her own volition, dressed and ready to go.

And little changes started from there. First, Sara started voluntarily spending more time out of the basement. Then she started leaving the house. Almost a month later, she was going to the coffee shop with Laurel and Felicity and Iris every Saturday morning and even contributing to the conversation.

Eventually, Sara started followed Felicity around in all her different jobs, so much so that she was almost an unofficial employee at the bookstore. One rainy Wednesday afternoon, Sara was sitting on the counter at the while Felicity was counting through a new shipment of best sellers. They were chatting and giggling over some of the more ridiculous titles when the door opened and the little bell rang, indicating someone had just walked in.

"Welcome to Beachfront Books," Sara called out without even glancing over.

"Thank you," a distant voice answered. The tone of it danced on the edge of Felicity's recognition and she glanced up in surprise to find none other than Moira Queen standing in the middle of the tiny store, in all her billionaire glory.

"Can we help you?" Sara asked in her polite voice.

"I was hoping to speak to Felicity over there," Moira said, looking straight past Sara and boring right into Felicity's eyes with her laser-like focus.

"Oh," Sara blinked. "Sure thing. Would you like some privacy or…?"

"Yes that would be very helpful, thank you."

Sara nodded. "You got it." She shot her sister a questioning look before hopping off the counter and disappearing through the back room.

Felicity stood from the little stool she was sitting on and unconsciously started straightening out her clothes. "Moira," she greeted. "What brings you here to Hertfordshire?"

"You, actually," she answered. "My son tells me he offered you a position at Unidac Industries, but you declined."

Well she certainly didn't waste any time getting to the point.

"I did," Felicity nodded, her cheeks turning crimson. "A family emergency came up. It's impossible for me to leave right now."

"Your family seems to run into a lot of emergencies," Moira noted coolly. "First it kept you from graduating MIT, now it's keeping you from working with my son."

Felicity's eyes narrowed at the accusatory tone in the older woman's voice. "Well family is important to me," she answered, resentment coloring her words. "I'm sure you can understand."

Moira just hummed her agreement, her lips still pursed like she was regarding an interesting insect at an exhibit.

"Surely you didn't come all this way just to ask me why I didn't take the job," Felicity pressed on.

"I did indeed. Because the thing is, Felicity, I can't understand why a seemingly brilliant woman such as yourself would turn down such a wonderful opportunity to work with our company unless it was because you're fielding competitive offers. And seeing as how you're still working in this bookstore, I have to wonder what exactly is going on."

"I told you," Felicity bit out, her patience swiftly waning, "I turned down the offer because of a family emergency."

Moria waved away that excuse like it was nothing. "Ridiculous. Emergencies are temporary — eventually they will fade. I think you turned it down because you're scared."

"Excuse me?" Felicity demanded. "Scared? Scared of what?"

"Scared to finally move out of this town and make something of yourself," Moira shot back. "You've gotten comfortable here, being the smartest girl for miles. Everywhere you go people look to you because you're the one who knows everything. But the minute you leave this place and start working somewhere else, you're just another smart kid in a room full of former valedictorians. You don't want to stop being special, so you find excuse after excuse to stay."

Fury lit a fire in Felicity's belly. "That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," she spat.

Moira continued on like she hadn't heard her. "You know, my son went to bat for you. I was skeptical about bringing you on, but he swore up and down that you were the one for this job. He went on and on about how you were special, that you were a smart bet. So imagine our great surprise when you turn it down to stay here, working in a bookstore."

The fire inside Felicity grew and grew until she could hardly breathe. She tried to tamp it down and retain even a modicum of civility in her presence, but it got harder and harder.

"Mrs. Queen, I turned down your son's offer at Unidac because my family needs me here at the moment," she said in as even a tone as she could. "You can refuse to believe that if you want, but it is the truth. I'm working in this bookstore because it's a good place to work and it's near my family."

"Ms. Smoak, I was led to believe that you are an intelligent person," she shot back. "But to hear of you turning down this once in a lifetime opportunity makes me rethink that assessment."

Felicity sucked in a deep breath. It seemed like the Queens would forever be questioning her intelligence.

"I am a smart person," she said slowly. "But I'm also a compassionate person. I'm a person who is there when my friends and family need me. Right now my family needs me. My sister needs me. I'm not going to abandon her when she needs me most."

Moira shook her head. "You are being extraordinarily foolish right now. You're not seeing the bigger picture, and you're not thinking about what's best for yourself."

"Why does it matter to you?" she demanded. "If I'm really being so foolish then why are you taking it so personally?"

"Because you remind me of me," Moira answered grimly.

That made Felicity's mouth snap shut.

"Many years ago, I took a vacation here for the summer and I fell in love," she began, her voice and tone much softer than it had been. "But it wasn't meant to be — being with him meant staying here forever, and that wasn't what was best for either of us. So as painful as it was, I let him go and I moved on. Now I'm the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company. I have two beautiful children. None of that would have happened if I stayed here."

Felicity blinked in surprise, as Moira divulged all this. The Queen matriarch was being pushy and overbearing because...because she liked her?

"You can't stay here, Felicity," she insisted. "You're not fulfilling your potential, and you have so much of it. Everyone can see that."

Felicity closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I know. And I won't. But Moira, please, listen to me — if one of your kids was in trouble, wouldn't you do anything within your power to make it all right?"

Moira's eyes were tight, but she nodded.

"That's what this is for me," Felicity explained. "It's not like I'm staying here for a man — I'm staying here for my family. I'm not saying that I'm going to stay here forever. I'm just saying that right now, my family is my priority."

The older woman still didn't look happy, but she looked like she had at least accepted Felicity's decision.

"Very well," she said stiffly. Then she walked forward and in a surprise move took both of Felicity's hands in her own. "But you promise me this, Felicity Smoak: you promise me that you will not let your talent and your intelligence go to waste."

Fire burned in Moira's eyes, sending scorching shivers all through Felicity's veins.

"I promise."

"Good."

And with that, Moira let Felicity's hands drop, turned on her heel and swept out of the bookstore. It left Felicity in a bit of a daze — it was next to impossible to believe that Moira Queen herself stood in this tiny room seconds before to yell at her for turning down a job offer.

A few minutes after Moira left, Sara peeked her head in through the door.

"Felicity?" the younger girl asked cautiously. "What was that?"

"I'm not entirely sure," she admitted.

Sara looked down before continuing her question. "Did you really turn down that job offer?" she whispered.

Felicity whipped her head around so fast to stare at her sister and much to her horror, she could see the guilt all over her sad face. "Sara," she whispered. "Don't worry about it."

"You shouldn't have," she murmured. "You should have taken it. You shouldn't have let me get in the way again."

"Sara," Felicity repeated firmly. "Stop. I didn't take the job offer because I wanted to stay. I wanted to be here for you. You're my sister, and I love you, and I want to be here for you."

Sara's eyes started to well up a little. "Felicity," she whispered. "I feel like you keep putting your life on hold for me. And you shouldn't. You should go out there and live your life."

Felicity's heart tore a little, and without saying a word, she stepped forward and enveloped her little sister in her arms. "You are my family, and my family is a huge part of my life. I'm not putting anything on hold. I'm staying because I want to be here. I want to help you. No one is making me stay, least of all you."

Sara chuckled wryly, the sound muffled in Felicity's shoulder and it brought a smile to her face.

The rest of the winter and the early part of spring passed in relative quiet. Sara's case was moving slowly through the Colorado court system, which gave them time to come up with a game plan. After much arguing, Quentin and Donna both reluctantly agreed to use Felicity's savings to pay for Sara's lawyer, and Felicity went back to working at the bookstore and doing various other odd jobs around town to build up her savings once more.

All in all, life for the Donna-Smoaks was as quiet as it could ever be. That was, until early May, when Sara started getting phone calls from a mysterious number. At first she ignored it, but when the same unrecognized number kept popping up on her caller ID, she eventually gave in and answered.

The result of the conversation surprised everyone in the family.

The minute she hung up the phone, she emerged from the basement, a dazed and disbelieving look in her eyes. Felicity, who was sitting in the living room reading a magazine, eyed her sister with concern.

"Sara?" she asked. "Sara, what's the matter?"

Sara didn't say anything. She just walked toward her sister and plopped herself down on the couch next to her.

"Sara, come on," Felicity said uneasily. "You're really freaking me out here."

"That was a call from McKenna Hall. She's a hotshot defense lawyer in Colorado."

Felicity raised her eyebrows. "Is that the same lawyer that Dad and Laurel have been trying to take your case?"

Sara shook her head. "No. She's even better. She's never lost a case. She defended that one asshole teen who killed a family of four in a drunk driving accident and got him off with the 'affluenza' defense."

Felicity grimaced. "What is she doing, calling you?"

"She said she wants to take my case."

Felicity's jaw dropped. "You're kidding."

"It's what she said. She's emailing me the contract later today."

Felicity started to feel something akin to panic. If the lawyer Dad and Laurel wanted for Sara was expensive, God only knew how expensive this McKenna woman would be. And yeah, she had a lot in savings, but it probably wasn't nearly enough to pay for a defense attorney who's never lost.

"We're going to have to talk to Dad and Laurel," she said, immediately trying to calculate it in her mind. "See if we can't negotiate her fee or something."

Sara shook her head mechanically. "That's the weirdest part, Lissy. She's doing this pro bono."

That made Felicity pause and her eyes widen. "What?" she demanded.

"She wants to take on my case for free. Said an old friend called in a favor, and my case was so straightforward that she could win it in her sleep."

Felicity could hardly wrap her mind around it. A hotshot lawyer in Colorado was willing to take on her sister's case for free?

No. No way. There had to be a catch.

Quentin agreed. When Sara told him about it, his lips pursed and his eyes narrowed in pure skepticism.

"Are you sure about this?" he demanded. "This sounds like some kind of elaborate trick."

Sara was far too happy and excited about it to see how too-good-to-be-true it sounded. For her, it was a chance to secure a good lawyer to get her to avoid jail time and let her sister off the hook for having to pay for it all.

"Why would someone want to go to all this trouble to trick me?" she asked.

"That's my question," he insisted stubbornly. "You didn't piss anyone off while you were over there, did you?"

"Dad," she scoffed. "That's ridiculous."

"Sara, you have to see that this sounds a little suspicious," Felicity said.

"No it's not," Sara argued. "McKenna meant it! She wants to help me, and she wants to do it for free! Why are you guys so convinced that this is a bad thing? Felicity, I thought you of all people would think this is great!"

She did think it was great. That was the problem. Felicity didn't want to get her hopes up only to have them come crashing down once again because it had been a ruse they had been too optimistic to see coming.

That night, Felicity pulled out her laptop and did a very basic search for McKenna Hall. It turned out, Sara had been telling the truth about the woman's record. She had never lost a case that went to trial, and all of her clients got very lenient sentences.

When Felicity did a deeper search, she found out other things — for example, McKenna got her undergrad in criminal justice at Michigan. Then she went to law school in Star City…

...where she had a brief relationship with none other than Oliver Queen.

Felicity felt her fingertips go cold when she read that. McKenna knew Oliver. They even dated.

What if…?

No, she immediately thought to herself. There was no way she was going to let her imagination run away with itself. McKenna's connection to Oliver Queen was nothing more than a coincidence. They clearly ran in very powerful circles, and people who ran in powerful circles all seemed to know one another.

She closed her laptop and put it away, determined to stop thinking about Oliver Queen and McKenna Hall.

And she succeeded for a little while. She spent the rest of her evening working on a fried laptop someone at City Hall paid her to fix up. The work had sufficiently kept her thoughts occupied so that when it was time to turn in, she only thought of ways she hadn't tried yet to make the computer work again.

But when she slid under her comforter and closed her eyes, her thoughts unwillingly traveled down the same path she wanted to avoid.

Was it possible? she thought timidly to herself. Was it possible that Oliver Queen had called in a favor to an old friend? Asked that McKenna take this case?

No, was the first answer. That was absurd. Absolutely absurd. Sara was no one to him, so why would he go to all the trouble? The only reason he would was as a favor to her, and Felicity was sure that she was the last person Oliver Queen would ever want to do a favor for.

But was that still true? Sure, she turned him down when he asked her out, and she turned him down just about as viciously as anyone had ever been turned down before. However, that didn't stop him from being the most perfect gentleman when she went to that interview at Unidac Industries. That didn't stop him from treating her with kindness, even when she didn't deserve it. That didn't stop him from being so understanding, from listening to her as she cried about her problems.

Felicity shook her head. No, he was just being a decent human being. Decent human beings were courteous to prospective employees and they listened to people when they cried instead of turning them away. She knew now that Oliver Queen was just a good guy, perhaps even a great guy, if all those stories Curtis told about him were true.

But being a great guy didn't mean that he was the one to do this.

Still, she sighed to herself as she turned over in her bed — she would have loved it if Oliver Queen had called in a favor and arranged the whole thing. Because maybe, just maybe, it would have meant that he still had feelings for her.

And maybe, just maybe, she had feelings for him as well.